


because there's beauty in the breakdown

by comebacknow



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Canon divergence - everyone lives, Dealing with PTSD, Internal Monologuing, Multi, Richie POV, i rated in mature bc like idk ptsd?, no one actually speaks, six hours after killing the clown, under 2k, yes even stan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:28:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25228312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comebacknow/pseuds/comebacknow
Summary: Hours before they're all about to book their flights back to their new lives, Richie looks around the room and wonders if they're making the right choice.There’s a heaviness that takes over the night and they all can feel it, but no one says a word about it.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Stanley Uris/Loving Himself
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	because there's beauty in the breakdown

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone lives/Nobody dies (except the clown)
> 
> i'm suffering in loser club feels come drown with me. there's a joke about us all floating down here.

* * *

There’s a heaviness that takes over the night and they all can feel it, but no one says a word about it. 

And Richie’s not about to say anything, because he’s not gonna be the one to ruin it. He’s tired of that being his role in the group and, honestly, after everything that’s gone down in the last forty-eight hours, he finds he doesn’t even have the words to say if he wanted to.

So they’re all kind of bunched up in the little bar area. Ben’s back there turning the bottles round as if he’s super fucking interested in the name of each and every one of them, and Bev is sitting at a barstool, because she hasn’t been able to separate herself further than ten feet from Ben. She hasn’t said as much, but Richie’s fucking observant is the thing. They can talk their shit about him being The Blind One all they want, but somehow he’s always the one in the corner, eyes shifting from miniscule movement to miniscule movement.

Like right now. He can see Bill leaning against the staircase, one arm folded across his ribs and the other resting on it, thumbnail tucked between his teeth and eyes set on the floor. But he’s not just standing there, and Richie doesn’t know if the others even get that or not. Bill’s got shit to say, but he refuses, because he thinks his stutter breaks down the weight behind his words, but doesn’t he fucking know by now? Doesn’t Bill fucking know by now that they all understand that when he stutters, it’s _because_ it’s important. Like the way they got back to the house and Mike held the door open for them all and Bill choked out a quiet _“th-thank you, M-M-Mike”_ and it doesn’t TAKE a fucking genius to know that he didn’t give a shit about the door at all, but rather who was holding it open for him.

And Mike’s been fiddling with his broken watch for the better part of the half-hour, which he knows is useless with its missing hand and cracked glass, but he does it because he doesn’t know how to fucking say _“you’re welcome.”_

This is what he means when Richie says he doesn’t want to go home. Because they’ve all got their lives to get back to, sure, but what about this life? What about this life that has broken thread after broken thread that they all suddenly came back to pick up? When do they get back to _this_ life. Doesn’t a second chance count for something?

Doesn’t Stan fucking agree with him as he sits on the steps and doesn’t look at a single one of them almost as intently as he avoids a fucking mirror? 

Richie wants to scream. He wants to just yell nonsense into the room to get everyone to snap the fuck out of it, but the problem is, he can’t even get himself to wake up. He’s leaning against the wall across from the bar, arms folded and head tucked down like he’s a bullied fucking child. 

But Richie knows the difference. He knows because he’s watching them. He knows their fucking quirks inside and out because his memories came slamming back into him like a goddamn hammer. And the worst part of it is that through all of what he sees, he can’t seem to _really_ focus on any of it enough to conjure up a sentence that will snap himself out of it, because he’s too busy inhaling the fucking mint and antiseptic scent that seems to follow Eddie around like an aura. And it’s not new; it’s not because Eddie came home and immediately disinfected his cheek and side and hands several times but it’s because that’s who he fucking is. That who he’s always been and that’s probably who he’ll continue to be when they all finally book their flights and he gets back on a plane off to wherever the fuck, and it’ll leave Richie standing there with the scent of stale air and loss instead. 

And loss, he’s used to, of course. They all know what it’s like to lose, but as of six hours ago, they also know what it’s like to win. And Richie won’t allow himself to feel guilty over wanting to hold onto that for just a little bit longer. 

So when Ben and Bev are busy avoiding each other’s gaze while orbiting around each other, and Bill is spending his time biting his nails and brushing his teeth to avoid speaking, and Stan is a disheveled folded up ghost of who he used to be and Mike is counting down the minutes until they all fucking leave him here again, Richie will be experiencing another type of loss that will overrun their win, because he’s too busy trying to memorize the way peppermint makes his senses come alight and to find a way to bring that home with him in the shape of a suitcase with two t-shirts and a bottle of eyeglass cleaner. And the fear of breaking this moment between them is taking up the space that should be dedicated to making something out of it. 

So Richie tosses words around in his head and stares at Eddie where he sits tensley on the floor even though everyone knows he fucking hates it and Eddie busies himself double and triple checking the bandaid on his hand to see if the blood has seeped through enough for him to occupy himself with changing it instead of speaking up.

Because Richie knows they’re all thinking the same thing he is: the minute one of them speaks, time moves forward. And that means packing and booking and flying and leaving. And leaving means forgetting. And, for once, when they leave this town - nobody wants to forget the pain and fear and trauma that they’ve gone through because they’ve found something that’s worth remembering through all of it.

And it’s different for all of them - but so what? Do they just leave it behind? 

Ben found a three-syllable word to rhyme with _love_ and Bev found the shape of someone that looks like _care_ and they’re supposed to dispose of it into the bin behind the small bar and leave it on the sidewalk’s curb for someone else to deal with.

Bill is biting down on the fact he’s found something he didn’t know he _missed_ and Mike finally realizes he doesn’t have to count the minutes, hours and days until they _remember_. And now Bill is supposed to not remember and Mike is supposed to learn how not to miss?

And Eddie - fucking Eddie - found a way to heal himself around everything about him that he thinks is _broken_ only to go back to a home that tries to fix him and Stan has learned to turn ‘will be’ into _is_ only to question himself again as he goes home and sits in the bath washing off the invisible stain of a town he doesn’t even know exists. 

And now Richie is left standing around wondering when he’ll have to walk down the gray carpeted tunnel of a jet bridge after trying to sneak _acceptance_ through airport security just to shove it into an overhead bin with his carry-on.

So he doesn’t speak.

Because he doesn’t want any of them to have to empty their pockets of the little bit of peace they’ve found with each other, even if it means swallowing down words that he’s been wanting to say for as long as he can remember and choking on the sharp tang of peppermint-flavored regret. 

He stands, leaning against the wall, and watches. He picks up on the way Ben’s eyes shift from a Stolichnaya vodka up to speckled stars above a cherry-red smile. And he watches how the long black minute hand of Mike’s watch finally ticks forward and jars him into glancing up toward the stairs. And how Stan stops staring at the scars on his arms and starts staring at the blank patches of skin like they’re small canvases of hope. How Beverly stops tugging on her bracelet long enough to reach forward and slide a martini glass across the bar. And how Bill drops his hand long enough to exhale in one stream of breath and how Eddie pockets the spare band-aids and rests his hands on the carpet behind him. 

And Richie knows, now, that in the silence - there is healing. And if it takes twenty-seven years, or forty-eight hours, or just thirty-six minutes in a dim-lit room, then he’ll let it happen. Because eventually, the healing _will_ come around for all of them. 

There’s a lightness that takes over the night and they all can feel it, but no one says a word about it. 

Ben pours Bev a drink with a smile, Mike tosses the broken watch into the trash can, Stan moves from the steps and joins Bev at the bar, and Richie pushes off the wall and sits on the floor next to Eddie, leaning back on his hands and letting the centimeters of space between their fingers figure out a way to become something more. 

And Bill lets out a small laugh that precedes a question he’s been memorizing all night. “How do you guys feel about an-nother adventure?”

**Author's Note:**

> come cry with me on twitter @ manichalseyy


End file.
